


Never Trust a Handsome Man

by Rhain



Series: Truth and Lies [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 09:00:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20794055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhain/pseuds/Rhain
Summary: Usopp looks to get to the source of Sanji's anger after the events of 'All My Fault'.





	Never Trust a Handsome Man

Four days. Four days, and Sanji had hardly moved from his self-appointed post at the side of the ship. Sure, he’d done his duties—No one would starve under Sanji’s watch—but only at the bare minimum. There was no real joy to his actions. He didn’t joke with the crew, he didn’t flirt with the ladies. He also didn’t visit Zoro in Chopper’s infirmary.

All he did was smoke and stare off into the horizon. At first Usopp had thought the cook was looking for something, but then he decided there was something more. Sanji was… Angry. At someone. And the list for who that someone could be wasn’t very long.

It could have been Zoro, but that was the obvious answer. When Sanji was mad, it was always at Zoro, and when that happened the two of them would just fight or fuck or whatever they did in the late hours when normal people chose to sleep. This anger was different.

It could have been at the people who had… hurt him. Chopper hadn’t much gone into the details other than to say that Sanji had been very hurt by the people who had taken them. Sanji wasn’t talking about it, so that just left the rest of the crew to wonder in silence.

But all of the people who had hurt them were dead. Sanji had made certain of that with a sort of brutality that Usopp hadn’t been aware the cook possessed. Sanji didn’t normally go out of his way to kill people. If anything, the cook genuinely avoided killing people at all. But this crew hadn’t survived the totality of his attacks. And when he’d dropped a cigarette in their gunpowder supply, not a single Straw Hat had argued.

Most of them were too busy trying to keep Zoro alive.

The only other person Usopp could figure Sanji was mad at was in fact Usopp himself. He was the ship’s sniper, after all. He was their sharp shooter. He’d seen the gun with enough time to call out a warning, but had been so off guard at the time that he didn’t get his shot off in time to save Zoro from the bullet.

He should have been stronger. Faster. Wasn’t that the point of all of their time apart, after all?

Usopp quietly stepped up beside Sanji. Zoro had already forgiven him, but he needed to make amends with the cook too. He stood there next to Sanji for three hours before Sanji finally moved.

It wasn’t more than reaching into his pocket and pulling out his smokes, but Usopp caught the difference. He understood the meaning.

Sanji had retrieved two cigarettes. He smoked one down to the filter faster than Usopp had ever seen anyone do. Then Sanji lit the second cigarette and, finally, took his eyes from the ocean. He watched the smoke curl up off the end and didn’t put it back between his lips at all. He just held it and watched the smoke.

“Na… Sanji-kun.” Sanji didn’t look over at him, and Usopp couldn’t see under Sanji’s hair to gauge a reaction. Not encouraging, but Usopp was brave enough to continue. He swallowed. “I wanted to app—“

“Usopp.” It was quiet and serious, and it stopped Usopp’s words on his tongue. He didn’t say anything else, just lifted that cigarette up to his lips and took a long drag.

Usopp was a patient man, though. He could wait. He watched Sanji as the cook placed both palms on the rail. The cigarette in one hand was still trailing a lazy smoke, and Sanji had neglected to brush the ashes away. They fell down in a gentle breeze and made a small mess over the cook’s fingers, but Sanji didn’t react.

When it had finally burned itself out, Sanji flicked the filter overboard, all the while staring down at the wood of the railing. Finally, he started talking. “My third birthday…”

The words were so soft that Usopp wasn’t sure he heard them right. He held his breath for fear the sound of it might over power what Sanji was trying to say.

The blond eventually continued. “A delivery man from the capital brought me a gift wrapped in gold paper. It was the prettiest and richest thing I’d ever seen. The other presents from the rest of my family were dull and almost dreary by comparison. My mother didn’t know where it came from, and there was no return address, but I insisted on opening it. My dad was away and I thought it was from him…”

Sanji reached into his jacket pocket, retrieved another cigarette, but didn’t light it. He still hadn’t looked over at Usopp. Suddenly, his tone shifted, and he started almost musing, “Where I come from there’s this… Anomaly. You know how they say that you can’t judge a person from their looks? Well where I’m from that’s not true. Who you are inside is reflected entirely on the outside. And my mother…” Sanji’s hands moved like he was trying to physically grasp the right words, “She was beautiful. More beautiful than anyone you’ve ever met.” He put a hand over his chest. “You could see her heart in her eyes. I loved her so much… Everyone did.”

He went quiet again after that. He was quiet for a long time, until finally Usopp couldn’t take the confusion anymore. “What… What does this have to do with what happened?”

Sanji looked over at Usopp finally, and the sniper was worred he was about to say something like 'nothing, I was just opening up to you asshole,’ but that never happened. After a quick glance from behind his fringe, Sanji resumed staring out at the ocean. “The guy in the helmet was the delivery guy.“ Sanji shook his head, apparently appalled by himself. "Handsome and smiling… I trusted him without a second thought.”

Usopp had a growing feeling of dread even as he decided to be brave and ask the question behind all of this. “What was in the box?”

Sanji repeated the process of smoking his cigarette down to the filter and flicking the butt over the side. His motions had a forced casualness as he pulled out another. “My father’s eyes,” he stated in even tones.

“Your fa…” Usopp trailed off, stunned. He didn’t know what he expected, but that was… That was awful.

Sanji nodded, like it was a normal thing to admit to someone. “The man who sent them was in love with my mother. He sent them as a way to show that he wouldn’t stand for anyone else’s eyes upon her.” Sanji started to break in the cool way he was delivering his facts. “She cried… so much. And she did something I never expected her to do… She lied to me. About… About a lot of things. But I knew.”

That made a lot of sense. It was like the first building block of Sanji’s motivations. Usopp suddenly realised, “Always forgive a lady her lies.”

“And never trust a handsome man.” Sanji shrugged and forced a smile. “Good thing you’re one ugly bastard, right Long Nose?”

Usopp didn’t know what to do with this information, and he certainly didn’t know why that meant Sanji had to stare out at the sea like he was. But he also knew what had happened that week was more than just a physical attack; Sanji was hurting in ways none of them really understood.

“If you want to take a break, I’ll watch the water until you get back,” he offered. Sanji couldn’t carry his pain alone, and even if he didn’t know what he was supposed to be watching for, Usopp didn’t know how else to help his friend.

Without responding verbally, Sanji reached out and took Usopp’s hand in his own. He squeezed once, and continued holding on when he turned his eyes back out to sea.

Sanji’s shoulders weren’t slumped quite as low after that, and Usopp understood that his offer had helped. When Sanji stepped away to go start dinner, Usopp remained on guard in his place. He was pretty sure it was the only way he could get the cook to relax, and besides, it didn’t hurt to make sure no other monsters were crawling out of their pasts and sneaking onto the ship.


End file.
